After placing 13th in the 262-participant field at the Greater Louisville Classic on October 1, freshman Victoria Voronko was named the MAC Cross Country Runner of the Week last week. After a week off, the men’s and women’s cross country teams return to competition this weekend. The women will run in the Bradley Classic in Peoria, Illinois, on Friday, while the men will run in the Guelph Invitational in Guelph, Ontario, on Saturday. If you’ve never heard of it — I hadn’t — Guelph is about 60 miles west of downtown Toronto. Founded by John Galt (no, not that John Galt) the town of 114,000 is consistently rated as one of the best places to live in Canada. Also, someone at EMU just noticed that the men’s cross country team is celebrating their centennial this year. (Or, they would be celebrating it, if EMU had noticed sooner.)

Both women’s soccer games over the weekend went into overtime, though with different results, with the Eagles losing 2-1 at Bowling Green (5-10; 2-4 MAC), then coming home for a 2-1 win over Miami (6-7; 1-5 MAC). After scoring just four goals in their first nine games, including going scoreless through most of September, EMU has now scored five goals in the last four games. Freshman Angela Vultaggio scored both EMU goals in the win over Miami, and with four goals for the season, accounts for nearly half of EMU’s scoring. Just over midway through the MAC schedule, the Eagles still have an outside shot at making the MAC Tournament, which requires them to finish in the top eight. Right now, that means finishing .500 in MAC play, and since EMU is 1-4-1, they probably need to win at least four of their last five games (which are all against MAC West foes). Unlikely, to be sure, but they haven’t yet been eliminated. Yet. This weekend the Eagles will go on the road, playing at Northern Illinois (2-10-2; 1-5 MAC) Friday and at Western Michigan (7-7; 3-3 MAC) Sunday. Also, the Eastern Echo has a profile on senior twins Amanda and Katie Marsh.

After tying with Toledo for the lead after the first round, the women’s golf team struggled today in the second day of the MAC Preview, finishing in third place, one stroke behind Akron and Toledo (Toledo won a one-hole playoff). The Eagles were led by junior Sarah Johnson and sophomore Alyssa Kwon, who tied for 12th place. Johnson was also named the MAC Golfer of the Week for her third-place finish at the Nittany Lion Invitational the week prior. Monday and Tuesday the women will compete in the Hoosier Fall Preview in Carmel, Indiana.

At The Firestone Invitational in Akron, Ohio, the EMU men’s golf team finished 10th of 17 today. Sophomore Jared Dalga led the Eagles with a 6-under-par 210, putting him in a four-way tie for third place. This Sunday and Monday, the team will compete in the Windon Memorial in Skokie, Illinois. In other men’s golf news, East Kentwood (MI) High School senior Brett White gave a verbal commitment to EMU this week, saying, “I chose Eastern to play golf because they have a great coach, great facilities, they are in a great conference and they have a great history.” White was a first-team all-state athlete in both golf and ice hockey last year.

The EMU volleyball team ended a three-game losing streak this week, and evened up their MAC record at 3-3 (15-6 overall) with a dominant win in straight sets against Toledo (6-12; 1-5 MAC) and a 3-1 win against West Division leader Ball State (16-3; 5-1 MAC). If the season were to end today, EMU would make the 8-team MAC tournament with a 5, 6, or 7 seed. The Eagles are currently tied at 3-3 with Miami and Bowling Green, but — imagine this! — EMU will play at Miami this Friday night and at Bowling Green Saturday night. After this weekend, the Eagles will have a five-game homestand that they could well sweep; a pair of wins this weekend could well propel them from the middle of the pack into the top tier. Also this week the Eastern Echo has a profile on junior Rachel Iaquaniello.

EMU Athletics released an Android app, though it doesn’t seem to have any functionality beyond what’s already available from the mobile version of the website.

The MAC announced television schedules for men’s and women’s basketball. For EMU, the women’s basketball game against Northern Illinois on January 8 and the game at Bowling Green on January 22, and the men’s basketball game against Bowling Green on January 28 will be televised on Sports Time Ohio and Comcast Michigan (channel 900 — do they really go that high?). Also, EMU’s men’s game on November 27 against Michigan State is scheduled for ESPNU/WatchESPN. (How sad is it that even with one of the nation’s top teams coming to town, EMU can’t get on real television?)

EMU president Susan Martin recently rappelled down Roosevelt Hall.

Finally, and this doesn’t really have anything to do with organized sports or much of anything else, EMU president Susan Martin rappelled down Roosevelt Hall with EMU’s ROTC students Thursday. After she descended the 60-foot building, Martin commented, “I wondered what I was doing once I got up there. It’s crazy. I grew up on a farm and we had a silo that was 50 feet and I thought that was pretty tall, but…”